Kerby Jean-Raymond lit up the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn for his latest Pyer Moss show. The audience was a mix of industry insiders, celebrities and 500 lucky fans. Walking onto the scene, it was easy to imagine the production costs running well into the hundreds of thousands, which they did to the tune of around $400,000. Sheesh
“I think relatively few people know that the sound of rock and roll was invented by a queer black woman in a church. I wanted to explore what that aesthetic might have looked like if her story would have been told.”
Kerby Jean-Raymond, Vogue 2019
Entitled: Sister, the third and final chapter in the Pyer Moss trilogy, paid homage to Sister Rosetta Tharpe. A singer-songwriter who rose to popularity in the 1930s and ’40s, Tharpe is widely considered to be the godmother of rock and roll, though her legacy has been grossly diminished in music’s history book.
The show displayed the best of Black American culture.
Writer, Casey Gerald opened the show with a sermon that was fit for a Sunday morning. “Four hundred years have passed since they brought our people to this land . . . and I’ve come here to say you can’t hurt us no more,” said Gerald in reference to the anniversary of slavery in America. “They knew that no matter how their master treated them, no matter how the world treated them, they had freedom on the inside that the world could not take away . . . . And we are here tonight to claim our wings.”
There was also a 90-member choir: Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir Drench in the Blood. The choir started with 16 members when it formed a few years ago, and it dwindled down to just eight members at one point, but now there’s an entire stage full of singers
Pyer Moss Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear
